This mornings work yields a pretty little brass flywheel. The best thing about it was that the material was "left over" from the Stirling engine. I try and salvage every little short left over piece of material that I can.

That's pretty.

One of the pains of this hobby is buying metals to work on. I just did an order with Online Metals for parts that will end up in my Duclos engine and really hit a brick wall looking for 3-1/2" aluminum for the flywheel. The smallest piece I could get from Online Metals was $65 - for like an 11" cutoff scrap that I'd need to cut 1" off. I found a guy on eBay that would sell 1" slice for $12 - $7 for the cutoff and $5 for shipping. If I had that brass you had, you'd better believe I'd be using it just like you did.

CFLBob--Whenever I need little bits of this or that, I buy a foot of it. It keeps the metal supplier from going crazy, and the stuff I have left over from each build always finds its way into the next build. Even at that, the average "little engine" I build costs me about 50 to 100$. By the time you buy the material and the bearings and any other bits necessary, it adds up. That is why I sell my engine plans. It's never going to make me rich, but it does help with the cost of material.---Brian

Brian, is it possible to purchase your 'imperialized' plans? I have Ridders metric drawings of this enginne but I hate to translate as I go during the build as I have with his nice drawings the past.
Ray M

Brian, is it possible to purchase your 'imperialized' plans? I have Ridders metric drawings of this enginne but I hate to translate as I go during the build as I have with his nice drawings the past.
Ray M

Ray--I've been thinking about that one. The plans are certainly the intellectual property of Jan Ridders. However, It took me over a days work to model everything and create inch friendly versions of the plans. I think it would be okay for me to sell the inch version of the plans, as long as the purchaser is aware that I didn't come up with the original design in the first place. I would advise you to wait until I finish building the engine, because I quite frequently change the plans as the engine is built, if I see a better or easier way of doing something. I will have the engine finished probably within the next two weeks, and the drawings all updated by then. Contact me at brupnow@rogers.com when you see that I have the engine finished. The cost will be $25 Canadian funds, paid to Paypal